A light electric car still has to stop with the seats full

This week in Paris, Citroën showed an electric study of the 2 CV and said a later car should aim at about 15,000 euro. A figure on a card is a plan. The desk was not on the stand, and we have not sat in the study. What we can talk about is the job a light car is given once it leaves a hall: stop, with people in it, on a road that is no longer dry.

The weight changes when they sit down

A light car feels honest until the second person gets in and the bag follows. We have driven small cars whose empty stop felt short, and whose full stop asked for more road. The difference was two adults, a wet surface, and a pedal doing the same work with more mass over the front wheels. If the weight in the brochure is the empty car, it is not the car on a school run.

The bag belongs in the boot, not on a lap. A lap-bag becomes a loose object the moment you brake. That is a small failure, and it is the one a driver meets before any claim about lightness.

Wet is the other half

A dry loop forgives a light car. Rain does not. We are not scoring a concept. The check is the same stop, empty and then full, on a wet patch, with the glass telling you the floor is no longer the hall. A phone still needs a place that is not the passenger's hand, because a brake is when a loose phone becomes a projectile. None of that is a target price.

What we will keep

We will not grade a study we have not sat in, and we will not treat an aim of about 15,000 euro as a result. The list stays short: the stop with the seats full, the same stop when the road is wet, and a boot that actually holds the bag. The stand can name a price. Stopping is the part a driver can feel.